


An Act of Rebellion

by Rrismo



Category: Hitman (Video Games)
Genre: "can these two just go on a holiday" is the mood du jour here, 47 feeds some piggies!, Daddy Issues, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It, if that's not what you want I can't help you, self care is hard, traumatic past, up to the reader whether it's shippy or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrismo/pseuds/Rrismo
Summary: And there, past the chancel, is where Lucas sees him. 47 is standing in front of the altar by himself, absentmindedly looking up at the stained glass windows painting colorful patterns on his black suit pants and the white shirt with its rolled up sleeves.The rubber soles of Lucas’ boots make barely any noise on the stone floor, but the high ceiling of the church amplifies even the slightest sound, informing 47 of the other man’s presence.“You find what you’re looking for here?”Post Hitman III. Lucas and 47 have reached their goals, and pay Father Emilio a visit in their endeavor to lay the past to rest.
Relationships: Agent 47 & Lucas Grey, Agent 47/Lucas Grey, Emilio Vittorio & Agent 47
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	An Act of Rebellion

**Author's Note:**

> Hitman III is not even out and I already had to write a preemptive fix it fic after they released that opening cinematic. I fear for my boys' lives.

Even after a two hour drive, Mount Etna never leaves their sight. The volcano’s summit is the first part of the island to be dipped in morning sunlight, making the clouds of smoke cloaking its peak glow in vibrant hues of coral pink and apricot. 

It’s not far now, but the headway they’re making is slow due to the topography. The streets they’re taking crawl up and down the sites of mountains in serpentines, taking them past picturesque villages, eggshell white houses huddled against the sites of the hills and draped in cool morning hues, a chalk-yellow little bell tower rising above them and catching the first beams of sunlight. The road between the little houses coming right out of the sites of the mountain cliffs are so narrow, they have to slow down to a crawl. It’s alright. They’re not pressed for time. In fact, they won’t have to hurry ever again.

Neither of them has ever been truly free, even when they tried. And just like before, this freedom is frightening, for both of them. Rules can be grounding, routine can be comforting, a goal can be encouraging. Now they have gotten rid of it all, and need to learn how to live all over again. 47’s first wish was to pay a visit to Emilio Vittorio, a Sicilian priest who had granted him shelter twenty years ago when he had nowhere else to turn to. Of course Lucas knew about 47’s time in Sicily, as he knew about everything that 47 had done in the thirty years they had spent apart. But he let 47 talk, for it was rare enough that the man spoke up at all.

After making sure it was absolutely safe to travel to Europe, they took the most careful route, which has now led them here, into the middle of a hamlet, stuck in the middle of a road, as children on their way to school bustle past their rented Peugeot. It’s 47 on the steering wheel. He doesn’t react to one of the boys pulling a face at him before running along with his friends.

Half an hour later, and they are so far out in the sticks that the villages thin out into the occasional farmhouse. The way 47 cranes his neck the slightest bit tells Lucas they’re about to reach their destination. On their way here, Lucas has seen many quaint churches, carefully tended to and funded by tourists from around the world. The one atop the lush hill they are ascending right now is different though. The rustic charm of Gontranno church does not serve the purpose of attracting tourists, as there is no reason for them to stray this far from their guidebook routes.

It exudes a quiet, humble solitude.

As 47 parks their car next to the entrance gates, Lucas can’t help but notice the unusually clean facade and plaster. Despite there being no source of income for miles, the church is remarkably well taken care of.

They get out of the car and Lucas takes the opportunity to stretch his arms and legs as they let their gaze wander over the fields surrounding the foot of the hill. Sunbeams creep over the yellow and green patchwork and Lucas takes a deep breath of the fresh morning air. 

They take the four steps up to the front entry of the building complex. The gate wings are slightly ajar, allowing Lucas to look inside a verdant cloistered courtyard. 

“Are you coming?”, 47 asks.

“Me? Oh, no thanks.” Lucas chuckles and lifts both hands defensively. “I’m still not convinced I won’t spontaneously go up in flames the moment I set foot in there.”

47 looks at him a little longer, and Lucas knows he wants him to change his mind. Lucas’s got an entire speech prepared in the back of his head, next to the ugly roiling place where his anger about the never ending injustice in the world is still not quite done scratching and burning. It’s a speech about organized religion and cynical tools for powerful men to control the fates of those naive enough to trust them.

But this is neither the time nor the place. So Lucas shoves his hands into his pockets and nods in the direction of the church gates with an encouraging smile. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

He watches 47 knock on the wicket door embedded in the heavy church gates and straighten his back, the way he used to when they fell in for inspection. After a minute, the wooden door creaks open, revealing an old man, bent by age and hard labor. And yet, everything about him is orderly, his appearance being just as well taken care of as the grounds surrounding the church. Tidy, proud, in an understated way.

Vittorio clasps both hands over his own mouth, his eyes, comically shrunken through his heavy glasses, well up with tears. “My son!”, Lucas can hear him murmur in Italian, and then again, “my son, it can’t be!”

“It is me, Father”, 47 responds, also in Italian, something not unlike softness in his voice making him hard to understand.

Lucas can’t make out their next words, but their gestures say enough. Vittorio takes a step forward and grasps one of 47’s hands with both of his own, holding onto it tightly, a smile of relief clear on his face. 

A pang of jealousy hits Lucas at the sight, and as if along a nerve, its pain races deep inside his guts. He suffocates it immediately, like he would step on a smoldering cigarette stub. 

There are certain associations hardwired into the human brain. The earlier the association is built, and the more often it gets reinforced, the stronger it becomes. Night… dark. Noise… danger. Father… Ort-Meyer.

None of the doctor’s sons will be able to replace him completely. He sticks to all their insides like tar, and no amount of scraping will ever be able to get rid of him. To find a man that can outshine the smudges in the place where the word “Father” resides in each of Lucas and his brothers... it’s more than any of them can hope for. Lucas is jealous. But he has friends. He has family. He’s happy for 47.

“And who might this be?”, Lucas hears Vittorio say.

The priest is peeking past 47 now, right at him, a courteous smile on his face and a curious look in his eyes.

Lucas draws in his lips and bites down on them. Shit. This was not the plan.

47 stays quiet at first, says “Father, this is…”, only to look at Lucas expectantly, until Lucas can’t bear watching him struggle anymore, takes his hands out of his pockets and comes over to greet the priest.

“Good morning, signor Vittorio. Excuse me, I didn’t mean to be rude. My name is Lucas Grey.”

“Don’t worry about it. And please, call me Father”, the priest says with a hand wave. “What brings you to me on this fine day?”

“I’m just here to accompany my friend”, Lucas responds, trying his best not to sound too curt.

“A friend!” Vittorio shoots 47 a look of mild surprise.

For years, putting his feelings into words felt like wrapping gifts in too little paper. No matter where he pulled, there were always parts left uncovered, frayed ends, ugly creases and dog-ears. Nothing ever quite fit. Humans are not meant to learn how to express themselves in their late twenties. Even with practice it took him so much courage he used to feel like it wasn’t worth the effort.

But he’s gotten better. He’s come to understand that confidence in his emotions in and of itself is an act of rebellion. 

“Yes. A very close one”, Lucas says.

The priest nods solemnly, the creases around his eyes deepening with his smile. It’s strangely comforting even to Lucas when Vittorio pats 47’s back and says quietly: “That is good. Very good.”

Pulling open the door a bit further, Vittorio gestures inside the church. “Please, come! Rest for a while. You had a long journey. Surely you want to stay here tonight!”

Lucas is about to say, sorry, we couldn’t possibly accept that offer, we need to stay on the move. But then he looks at 47, who stares right back at him and it’s the same look he used to give him when he was hoping for Lucas to “forget” some of his dinner on the plate. With his lurking, unblinking glare, he’s probing for sympathy, a weakness that will garner him an advantage. It’s found in predators stalking their prey, they’ve been taught as children. But Lucas has found this behavior in other places as well. He’s seen it dozens of times in grocery stores: Children biding their time just to strike with frightening precision and beg their parents for candy from the checkout lanes with puppy dog eyes. They too exploit the weakness of their parents.

Lucas has found he doesn’t mind being a little weak for 47.

“Thank you for your hospitality”, Lucas says. “We’d love to stay the night.”

“Wonderful, that is very good news. Supper is at seven. Until then, please, make yourself right at home.” Vittorio gives Lucas one last smile, then turns his attention back to 47. “Do you want to join me in the choir, my son? It feels to me like we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, we do”, 47 says. They step into the church together and leave the door open for Lucas to follow them, which he doesn’t. Instead, he makes his way to the right through another pair of gates, into the vast backyard of the church.

He descends the large stone stairs into the green garden, on all sides embraced by the church walls. A narrow path leads him past shrubs, a vegetable patch and even a pen for pigs. It’s been raining the night before, so the ground is muddy enough for the animals to bury their snouts in it and dig for roots. They take little notice of the stranger in their endeavor, and Lucas continues his stroll towards a sizable draw well. He leans against its brick-built edge and peers into the large black hole. Cool, moist air wafts up from the darkness, and the flickering of light betrays where the surface of the water lurks far below ground. It’s quiet down there, so quiet it makes Lucas aware of the constant tinnitus he can’t remember a day without.

Lucas scratches a piece of mortar out of the well structure and drops it down the hole. The plop of water echoes back and forth within the well, and reflections of the rippling surface dance over the walls.

It’s not just the well. Lucas looks up again and lets his gaze wander over the yard with its cooing doves circling the bell tower, the faint grunt of pigs and the rustling of the wind going through the trees, all of it encompassed by brick walls so high they’re hard to scale without equipment. Lucas can see why someone looking for a safe haven would come to this place. It’s perfectly isolated, geographically as well as architecturally. But in the end, safety is nothing but an illusion, even here.

One of the sheds catches Lucas’ eye. It’s tucked away in the far corner of the yard, across from a structure of old ruins surrounded by more patches covered with healthy looking melon plants, cabbages and sunflowers.

Lucas approaches it and holds up one hand to peek through the window, but the window is too dusty to get a proper look inside. After a quick check of the perimeter, Lucas pulls out a tension wrench and titanium pick from his back pocket and gets to work on the padlock in front of the door. This probably was not what the priest had meant when he offered Lucas to make himself right at home, but Lucas is a curious man by nature and old habits die hard. The lock is spring-locked, almost disappointingly easy to open. Lucas pockets it while making his way inside. The shed is almost completely empty, save for a single wardrobe, a desk and a dusty cot. Something like a magnetic pull draws Lucas to the desk. It’s drawers are empty, but as he reaches underneath the table, he feels what he’s looking for. Going down on one knee, he inspects the underside of the table top, to find rows and rows of notches carved into the wood, each counting one day. His fingertips trace the etchings affectionately and he breathes out in a huff of a chuckle.

Even life here is a life confined by walls, chosen voluntarily or not.

He gets up and leaves the shed, puts the padlock back in the door and heads back to the main entrance. He doesn’t have to go that far though, as he sees 47 making his way down the flight of stairs towards the pig pen right this very moment. One of the pigs, a fairly big and old looking fellow, raises its head at once and waddles towards the fence to stick its curious snout through the wooden beams. The others, encouraged by the old pig, immediately follow suit and come sniffing at 47, their noses going this way and that, their ears flopping each time they throw up their heads and their little black eyes shining with hope.

“You are mistaken, I do not carry food”, 47 says and offers the old pig his open hand to sniff, allowing it to make sure he’s speaking the truth.

After all the months they spent together after their reunion, it still hits Lucas unprepared from time to time. The insides of his chest expand almost painfully, and it’s similar to the way he sometimes feels when he listens to Olivia talk about her projects and is witness to the way she lights up with determination. He wonders whether he’ll ever get used to it.

They do their best to enjoy the quiet for the rest of the day, helping out the younger priest taking care of Vittorio with some gardening, and watching Father Emilio himself feed the pigeons in the yard. When the church bell tolls seven times, Lucas jolts out of a nap he didn’t know he was having. He looks around and finds himself on the bench next to the bed of sunflowers slightly swaying to and fro in the warm Sicilian breeze.

The sky caught between the brick walls has started taking on an iridescent golden hue in one corner, and like water that draws its way up a piece of paper, the vibrant tinge seeps over the rest of the sky. 47 gets up without hesitation at the sound of the bells, but Lucas’ body feels like it’s made of lead, and his neck has gone stiff from sitting reclined on the hard wooden bench for so long. He lifts his gaze up to 47. The man doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Examining himself in the mirror, Lucas had always felt a grim satisfaction at the thought that thirty years of backbreaking work will even leave their mark on a flawless clone, yet they have left no traces on 47’s eerily pristine face. He truly is perfect.

As if to emphasize his thoughts, Lucas’ joints crack as he stands up and stretches.

They join Father Emilio and the other priest for dinner, and listen to the younger one recount the chores he’s taken care of throughout the day, until he arrives at the last task left to do, which is feeding the pigs. Father Emilio gives 47 a short glance and asks whether he would like to take care of that, for old time’s sake. 47’s head shoots up by a millimicron at the offer, making the laughter lines around Father Emilio’s eyes deepen.

After dinner, Lucas follows 47 into the shed next to the pen, where 47 immediately gets changed into an overall hanging from the back of the door and rubber boots. He pours the dry, dusty content of different bags rowed up by the wall into a bucket and mixes it with his hands until the entire shed is filled with dust. 47 goes about this entire process with the same focus and dedication with which he goes over his plans or checks his weapons for flaws. He carries the heavy bucket outside, and when he pours its content into the pigs’ feeding trough, he observes the excitedly grunting animals tearing into their dinner with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Father Emilio offers them the guest room, but 47 insists on spending the night in his old shed. 47 still prefers sleeping on the floor. It makes him feel safer, less exposed, and so Lucas takes the cot. He almost sleeps through the entire night, only lying awake for about an hour between three and four in the morning. Lucas listens for the faint sound of 47’s breathing in the dark until he dozes off again.

Lucas wakes up about an hour after sunrise, and finds himself alone. He puts on his clothes and leaves the shed to find the little back portal leading into the church complex slightly ajar. As he steps into the dimly lit corridor he’s greeted with cool, arid air. He makes his way towards a flight of stairs leading upwards and right into the nave of the church.

The rib vault stretching above him is flooded with morning light falling through tall stained glass windows from all sides, turning the dust motes dancing in the air into multicolored specks of embers. 

And there, past the chancel, is where Lucas sees him. 47 is standing in front of the altar by himself, absentmindedly looking up at the stained glass windows painting colorful patterns on his black suit pants and the white shirt with its rolled up sleeves. The rubber soles of Lucas’ boots make barely any noise on the stone floor, but the high ceiling of the church amplifies even the slightest sound, informing 47 of the other man’s presence.

“You find what you’re looking for here?”, Lucas asks, and even though he's lowered his voice, it still echoes back in the absolute quiet of the church nave. He steps up to 47 and shoots him a wry smile. 

47 makes a noncommittal noise.

Lucas bites down on his tongue where more snide comments are forming. “I can see why you like it here. It’s… very quiet.”

They wait in silence for a moment, and Lucas can see the dismay in the way 47 furrows his brows when he eventually says: “Too quiet.”

“Yeah”, Lucas murmurs with a nod. “I see what you mean.”

To eternally yearn for quiet but despise it once they’ve found it… Lucas hopes it’s another curse of the past.

“I came here when I had nowhere else to go”, 47 says, as if he’s figuring it out just now. “This place, Father Emilio, his words… they gave me structure when I had none. The redemption he offered me was a new goal to work towards.”

“But in the end, it was just another father’s approval you were looking for”, Lucas guesses, but the words come out harsher than he intends, and he regrets them immediately. 

A deep frown has formed on 47’s face, his lips are pressed together in a thin line.

“Don’t listen to me. I would have done the same in your situation”, Lucas adds quickly, trying to ignore the part of him that wishes he had, that wishes he could have indulged in the fantasy of an all-forgiving father whose love he could earn if he just worked hard enough, the part of him that burns with hatred at the mere thought of the word “Father”... and with jealousy. 

47 lifts one hand, opens the fist it has formed and lets it rest on the altar. “No, you’re right.” He looks up at the cross. “I just replaced one set of rules with another. It’s been a long time since I’ve come to understand that redemption is not for… people like me. All we can do is trust in the judgment of those we rely on.”

“And does it satisfy you, being the weapon carrying out their will?”

47 turns away from the cross and heads down the nave. “Yes”, he says, and Lucas follows him.

They head outside into the cool morning breeze to find Vittorio by the well, the hem of his robes wet with dew from the grass. They receive the priest’s blessing for safe travels, and Emilio holds onto Lucas’ hand for a moment longer than necessary, his dark eyes unusually keen as he says: “The kindest place won’t give you peace if you’re not kind with yourself.”

Lucas feels a familiar twinge of resistance at the words. “Thank you, Father”, he responds nonetheless with what he hopes is a convincing smile.

They bid each other goodbye, leave the grounds of Gontranno and catch the beautiful view of pastel colored fields and meadows sprawling out as far as the eye can see. They get into the car, and it’s Lucas on the steering wheel this time.

The priest’s words have made his bile rise in his throat again, even though he knows his anger is misplaced. It’s not Vittorio’s fault things aren’t as easy for Lucas as they are for 47. And maybe not even that is fair.

He’s come to understand so many things in these past thirty years, even how to be kind to others. Being kind to himself, too, might be something he can learn. Maybe this, too, would be an act of rebellion.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a lot for reading! I love feedback, so if you liked it, I'd be happy to know your thoughts.


End file.
